228 Tlie Insects of the Past Year and Progress in Insect Studies. 



The hop-aphis, Phorodon humuli, which was the cause, in 1886, of 

 the almost entire destruction of the hop crop of our State, again 

 appeared in the hop yards of Schoharie and Montgomery counties 

 during the months of July and August, in so great number as to 

 occasion much alarm. Recommendation was made of promptly and 

 thoroughly spraying with an insecticidal wash the infested vines, but 

 very fortunately this was not found necessary, for the heavy rains that 

 set in at the time, and continued for weeks thereafter, proved fatal to 

 most of the hop-lice, and arrested the threatened destruction of the 



In neglected orchards, in which category fall most of the orchards of 

 our State, fruit insects have abounded to the extent that the fruit 

 gathered and carried to market and sold has in many instances been 

 in a condition that rendered it absolutely unfit for table use — only 

 suitable for feeding to animals who may not claim the privilege of 

 selecting their food. At the same time the intelligent and enterpris- 

 ing fruit-grower has been able to meet and triumph over his insect 

 enemies by means of the spraying devices and insecticidal washes that 

 the recent studies of our economic entomologists have placed in his 

 hands and directed him how to use. The injuries of the apple-worm 

 can now be so easily controlled that worm-eaten apples should hence- 

 forth serve as an attestation of the ignorance, thnftlessness or laziness 

 of their grower. The destructive and long-dreaded plum-curculio is 

 being so successfully fought that it will probably soon be brought 

 under similar control. 



The apple-tree tent-caterpillar, Clisiocampa Americana Harris, 

 whose abundance last year was unparalleled, again appeared in mauy 

 sections of the State in immense numbers, consuming a large portion 

 of the foliage of orchards, and thereby greatly impairing the value of 

 the fruit in its diminished size, imperfect flavor, and tendency to early 



A remarkable multiplication, such as we have only occasionally to 

 note, was that of a species closely allied to the above, viz., the forest 

 tent-caterpillar, Clisiocampa sylvatica, which occurred in Washington 

 county in the early part of June. In a large maple grove visited, in 

 the town of Kingsbury, its depredations were seen to an extent never 

 before witnessed by me. In a tract of perhaps ten acres in extent, on 

 the entire north side where the attack had evidently commenced, the 

 trees, although some of them were two feet in diameter of trunk and 



